Video Tutorial: How To Make Future Bass with Serum

We've had allot of requests to do a future bass tutorial with Serum and so being the lovely people that we are here it is!
This 3 part is a great start to learning to produce with this increasingly popular plugin by Xfer Records.
This tutorial also uses samples from the ever popular Pusher: Future Bass sample pack from our exclusive Future Koncept label .
Below the video you will find step-by-step notes to accompany the tutorial. Enjoy!

PART 1 - BASS

Turn on OSC A and select Analog_BD_Sin which gives a good strong sub with some wavetable modulation options to make the sound more interesting.

Drop the pitch down an octave to make it nice and low.

Set the Wavetable position to around a 1/3rd from the top (approximately 170).

Set ENV2 to have a nice decaying slope lasting around 800-900ms.

Map ENV2 to the wavetable position of OSC A so that at the start of each note the wt-position is pushed right to the top of the range and then falls back down. This will give out attack a bit of tonal variation.

Select ENV3 and make a similar curve as ENV2, but this time we want the decay to be much shorter, around 250 - 300ms.

Map ENV3 so it’s modulating the coarse tune of OSC A by 24.

Currently, the tuning modulation is dropping the pitch too far. This is because Serum allows you to modulate in two different ways - uni-lateral and bi-lateral. Uni-lateral is the one we’re most familiar with where the value is getting pushed up or down depending on which way you set the modulation (i.e. +24 or -24 semitones). Bi-lateral means that the range extends either side of the current setting, so currently the pitch is being pushed above our current pitch at the start of the envelope, and below at the end of the envelope. To change this, go to the Matrix tab, find ‘A CoarsePit’, and click the two headed arrow so it turns into a single headed arrow. Now the pitch will be +24 at the start of the envelope and 0 by the end.

Next go to FX and add the compressor module. Turn up the threshold dial until you start to get a response in the level meter and turn up the attack a bit to let the initial hits through. Adjust the gain so that there is a bit of headroom to play with.

Add the EQ and boost the gain a few db on the low shelf to exaggerate the sub.

Adjust the Gain on the compressor as required to avoid any clipping.

PART 2 - CHORDS

Set OSC A to PWM Juno and OSC B to PWM Inception. On OSCB turn up the wavetable position to around 40.

Turn on the filter and set it to ‘Band 12’. Make sure the Res is turned down. Set the cutoff to around 240z. Also, switch on the routing for OSCB by clicking the small box with a ‘B’ next to it.

Set up LFO1 with a decaying slope and set the Rate to 1/8.

Use LFO1 to modulate the ‘wt-position’ of OSC A so the range moves the position up about 1/3rd.

Use LFO1 to modulate the cutoff to a value of about 100, making sure it is in bi-lateral mode (it should be by default, if not head over the the Matrix and click the arrow).

Next set LFO2 to a rate of 2 bars, leaving the shape as it is, and use it to modulate the wt-position of both OSCA and OSCB up to the top of their ranges. This will create some slower movement within the patch.

Select LFO3, set the rate to 1/8 and drag the curve into a concave shape so it decays very quickly.

Turn on the NOISE oscillator and modulate with LFO3. This gives a snappy attack to each of our stabs, so vary the modulation amount making sure it doesn’t stick out too much.

Head over the the FX tab and turn on HYPER/DIMENSION. on the HYPER side of the effect ￼bring down the mix slightly as well as the detune and rate.

Next, turn on the CHORUS, adjusting the mix to taste.

Finally, add REVERB. Bring down the mix a touch, bring up the low-cut (to remove any unwanted low frequencies) and pull down the size to make sure the tail doesn’t get in the way of the rest of the sound.

For an extra added layer of control, assign the mod wheel to manipulate the filter cutoff and the reverb mix, so that at the top of the range there’s more high frequency content and more reverb. You can do this by right-clicking on the desired parameters and and choosing ‘Mod Wheel’ from the ‘Mod Source’ drop down menu.

PART 3 - LEAD

We’re going to use some formant wavetables for this to get a vocal type effect.

Set OSCA to ‘DudaChoir’ and turn up the wt-position to around 35. Increase the octave to +1.

OSCB to ‘OOH_YAH_OO’ and turn up the wt-position to around 65.

Turn on the filter, making sure both Oscillators are routed to it (i.e. the blue light is on next to both A and B in the filter section). Select the ‘B/P/N 24’ filter shape from the Multi section and set the cutoff to 0.

In ENV2 set the decay to around 900ms and drag down the end point and the curve to create a drastic decay.

Map ENV2 to the wt-position of OSC B, so it boost the position by about a 1/3rd of the range.

Map ENV2 to the filter cutoff to it boost it all the way to the maximum.

Set LFO1 rate to 2 bars and use it to modulate the wt-position of OSC A by about 1/2 the full range.

Head over the the FX tab and add HYPER/DIMENSION, bringing up the DIMENSION mix to around 25%.

Add the REVERB unit, bring the mix down to around 25%, pull up the low cut slightly and adjust the size and dampening to taste.